About Robert Irwin

For over six decades, Robert Irwin (b. 1928, Long Beach, California) has explored perception as the fundamental issue of art. Irwin, who began his career as a painter in the 1950s and became a pioneer of the “Light and Space” movement in the 1960s, has, through a continual breaking down of the frame, come to regard the role of art as “conditional”—working within and responding to the specific surrounding world of experience. He has conceived over fifty-five site-conditional projects, including the Central Gardens for the Getty Center, Los Angeles (1992–98) and the architectural and grounds design for Dia:Beacon, New York (1999–2003). His large-scale permanent installation at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas (2001–16) is the first free-standing structure devoted exclusively to his work. Irwin received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur “Genius” Award in 1984, and was elected as an Academician at the National Academy in 2012. Pace has represented Irwin since 1966.